Using Technology to Optimize Route Planning and Boost Transportation ROI

Emerging route optimization technology can drive actionable insights that help you manage your supply chain more efficiently than ever.

Emerging route optimization technology can drive actionable insights that help you manage your supply chain more efficiently than ever.

Retailers and other suppliers are always looking for ways to reduce operational overhead and increase profit margins. Since today’s most popular delivery services demand increasingly sophisticated coordination throughout the supply chain, however, logistics providers need a truly modern solution to their operational challenges.

Enter: route optimization technology. With cutting-edge software connected to IoT-enabled supply chains, it’s now possible for supply chain managers to enjoy top-to-bottom visualization of their entire operation. Thanks to these advances, industry professionals can now make strategic decisions to streamline their routing, vehicle usage, and fuel consumption, all of which will streamline operations and boost transportation ROI.

Improve Supply Chain Efficiency with Modernized Infrastructure

As integrated IoT technology becomes increasingly common throughout the shipping process, the data points these sensors and devices generate can feed valuable information into routing software that tracks vehicles in real time. While this software can lead to short-term benefits such as monitoring whether drivers are taking detours or experiencing unexpected delays, it can also drive long-term value.

For example, routing software can automate the route planning process. Since it works with constant reference to your baseline efficiency, the makeup of your fleet, and current productivity levels, it can cut costs by identifying common bottlenecks ahead of time and redirecting your fleet accordingly. Similarly, routing software can help you manage crises as they occur. If deviations from the plan become necessary, you can rely on your digital infrastructure to divert drivers from congestion and minimize disruption elsewhere in the supply chain.

Use Key Insights to Drive Common Sense Planning

Aside from improving your overall efficiency, route optimization technology can enable you and your team to make common-sense decisions based on more accurate information. For example, routing software can help supply chain managers choose when to synchronize collections and deliveries in order to avoid empty running miles and boost asset utilization. Data organized with this technology can even help industry professionals schedule drop-offs and pick-ups so that the heaviest items — usually the most demanding on your fuel budget — are saved for first and last, respectively.

Equipped with more reliable information, logistics providers can improve their contingency plans to reflect the true operational capacity of their supply chains. Routing software can take vehicle size, driver capacity, delivery rate, and final destination into account in order to give supply chain managers the most realistic, effective options for any number of worst-case scenarios. By preparing for these possibilities ahead of time companies can have “what-if” action plans ready to go.

Leverage the Technological Capacity of a 3PL to Boost ROI

For small- and medium-sized businesses that want the benefits of route optimization technology but lack the means to acquire and integrate it throughout their supply chains, they should seek out an experienced third-party logistics (3PL) or integrated logistics services (ISP) provider. This allows you not only to tap into a robust technical infrastructure, but to leverage the expertise of a team who knows how to utilize said infrastructure effectively. In other words, you can harness the value of bleeding-edge technologies without having to invest in and nurture those capabilities internally.

With over two decades of experience in the shipping and logistics industry, Primary Freight is strategically positioned to deliver sustainable growth for your business. Outfitted with the latest shipping and logistics technology and comprehensive knowledge of the industry, our team has the operational capacity of a much larger provider and the responsiveness and personalization of a modest business partner. If you’re looking to avoiding routing headaches and boost your transportation ROI, let us design a bespoke program capable of meeting any and all of your shipping needs.

If you’d like to learn more about how Primary Freight’s warehousing and distribution solutions, contact us today at (800)-635-0013.